Those were some excellent interviews. Citizen journalism rocks!

---

One of the depressing things I keep hearing is "it can't get any worse" than the current President. This to me is silly.

The entire world is worried about the Iranian bomb, and their genocidal, apocalyptic rhetoric. Although it is difficult to predict, it is entirely possible that Iran and Israel will soon be as close to a major nuclear exchange as were the US and the USSR during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Of course there are different ideas about how to avoid that, and we are not there yet.

Meanwhile, India and Pakistan are nuclear powers that have had acute, low level conflict for decades. Things seem stable for now, but that could change. Worse, if a future nuclear exchange doesn't begin here, it could easily spread to here.

Also meanwhile, there have been no more 9-11's, 7-7's, or 3-11's. That could change too, but so far, things have improved since those dark days.

I am not saying this necessarily to defend Bush. I am just disturbed by the lack of awareness as to the world situation revealed by statements like "it can't get any worse".

Things could easily be much, much, much worse.

You will hear the expression "in the tank" referring to Bush and Fox News, or Obama and the rest of the media. That expression has nothing to do with a battle tank...or a think tank. The original phrase probably is from boxing, where a fighter who was "in the tank" would bet against himself, then intentionally loose a match. This in turn probably came from the expression "tanking" used to describe a stock that is declining rapidly in value, or achieving the lowest possible value, indicating it is worth betting on. There are other possible meanings and origins as well.

The WSJ blog OpinionJournal translated this to German as "im Tank für Obama" but I am certain they were joking.

I wonder, is there a amusing idiom in German for a boxer (or something like that) loosing on purpose? Is there anything involving the concept of "in" that suggests either drunkenness, infatuation, or having an ulterior motive? What would be a fun German idiom for "the fix is in"?

Maybe with German it is better to be literal?

Also there is this amusing and true account of how CNN interrupted a live discussion over whether the media was "in the tank" for Obama to report...that his plane landed safely!

Good point. That is a little creepy!

For additional, possible creepiness, have you seen LOLz: Obama = Lenin?

N.B. LOLz in this context means something like "just for laughs" so don't have a cow, David.

Any experts on German poster art or street art care to comment?

A better way to refer to the last 4 years of the Bush administration is the 2nd term of the Bush administration.

Adding to the fun, "term" can mean "word" as in terms of endearment (what Germany wants from Obama or McCain) or it can mean "period of time" as in term in prison (what Europe wants for Bush) :-) You probably knew that already.

Joerg,

When yearning for continuity, Europeans need to keep in mind that normally, the US electorate is pretty unconcerned with foreign policy. The break in continuity on this point was not the election of Bush in 2000, it was 9-11. This break took US foreign policy out of the hands of the mandarins at the State Department with whom some Europeans are more comfortable, and into the hands of the politicians, who can be unpredictable and appallingly populist.

I don't think you are calling for our foreign policy to revert to its pre-9-11 mode, and even if you were, it isn't likely to happen. So, continuity would mean, in effect, Americans revert to not caring much about foreign policy, and our foreign policy goes on auto-pilot. However, the mandarins don't really have the mandate for big changes to existing, post-9-11 policies. So this means no major changes to the visa requirements, travel restrictions, limits on cultural exchange, and all the other stuff that came out of the GWOT that is causing tension in the trans-Atlantic relationship. While auto-pilot wouldn't support any more big adventures like Iraq, it would permit smaller adventures like Somalia or Clinton's various bombing runs, which caused a great deal of resentment in the Islamic world and, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, played right in to bin Laden's "paper tiger" rhetoric.

Finally, if Bush is an aberration, Reagan's change from detente to confrontation was even more so. Worse, it was Reagan's initiative, and not an unforeseen event, that drove the change. Almost every European complaint about Bush sounds familiar to someone like me who became politically aware during the 80's. Yet the Regan "aberration" worked out fantastically well for Europe, especially Germany.

Continuity may not be all that you hope it to be.

Wow, from what little I can tell from Google's translation, that looks like it is a very interesting post from Metzner.

He quotes Helmut Schmidt, who apparently says about the Bundeswehr "Die Deutschen bleiben verführbar" Google renders this as "The Germans remain seducible". Could that really be true? What kind of flowers would be required? Chocolate?

Metzner is photographed with Christopher Paun, who is wearing a
"Get FISA Right" T-shirt. Very, very interesting. According to the Atlantic Community video, Paun is a German doctoral student in political science. I wonder if he knows that the FISA issue is the banner for a large (23,000 member) faction of activists at my.barackobama.com that objects to Obama's reversal on the recent FISA bill?

This faction routinely (and usually, politely) post threats to vote for a 3rd party candidate, or even McCain. These posts are usually removed from my.barackobama.com within a couple of days, but this means that a large number of people will have seen them and saved them to their hard drives, Google, etc. will have discovered these posts, etc.

From a blogging / new media point of view, this is really something new, and remarkable -- that a campaign could be so attached to new media that it actually lets people use campaign resources to vent their frustrations, even to the point of letting them organize to alter the candidate's official (if rather recent) policy on an issue as important as FISA. The campaign appears to understand that if they delete the group blogging area inhabited by this faction, the members can simply go elsewhere on the Internet and keep on posting...but they will be even more alienated. Very, very interesting.

Still waiting. Normally you're very quick on this. Cat got your tongue?

Christopher,

Thanks for writing. I am impressed with your knowledge of the US political scene.

"So as civil liberties presently do not have the support of the majority"

I disagree. In the US, civil liberties remain very popular, it is only the ACLU that has lost popularity.

When 9-11 came, I had been on the ACLU mailing list for some time, and the first, post 9-11 communication from the ACLU that I remember was an appeal to prevent a crackdown on, of all things, illegal immigrants! Over the following months and years it became clear the ACLU were out of touch. They had completely misjudged both the mood of the country and the seriousness of 9-11. They had no plan or vision for how to defend civil liberties in time of war. Their rhetoric became so shrill and sensational in tone, so over-the-top, I found it hard to take them seriously, even though I know they have many serious civil libertarians in their ranks. The ACLU seemed all too comfortable creating their own little climate of fear, and no good can come of that.

And yet, with the country fearful and the ACLU disoriented, WW II style mass internment was never seriously considered. TIA and similar programs were killed, in most cases before they even entered the proof-of-concept stage. The fear of government power, and the desire for freedom over the promise of security, remains embedded deep in the American soul, and cannot easily be suppressed. The Patriot Act passed only on condition that it be renewed every year. FISA, even in its current form, puts the US head and shoulders above most countries (outside of Western Europe) who do not accept or enforce any meaningful limitations on their ability to spy outside of their borders, or on national security exceptions within their borders.

Self-confident civil libertarians understand that during times of war, certain limits are inevitable and can even serve to protect civil liberties in the long run. The trick is to limit the emergency measures in such a way that it is easier to modify or repeal them once the emergency is passed.

Now that 'stateless terrorism' appears to have reverted to a chronic problem, rather than an emergency, it is indeed appropriate to revisit all emergency measures. Also, I hope the ACLU will give serious thought as to their plan of action, should another emergency occur.

The ACLU is still useful to civil libertarians because of their organizational resources. However, I fear the ACLU remains too focused on a few hot-button issues that are popular on the left. As a result, they don't see the big picture, and they fail to speak to the legitimate concerns of civil libertarians on the right (hate speech/speech codes, multicultural exceptions to fundamental rights, etc.) The ACLU risks turning civil liberties from a philosophy into a mere fetish.

Christopher,

I am also interested in learning more about espionage vs. civil liberties in Europe. For example, my impression of France is, when it comes to national security and even commercial espionage, they are...how to put this...quite permissive.

But maybe my impression is incorrect our out of date?

How would you compare French limited on spying (internally or externally) to the US or Germany?

Also, what limits does Germany place on its ability to conduct espionage outside of Europe?

Is there an article I should read for this?